Jody Morris has revealed the pull of Derby County and working with Frank Lampard meant that the time was right to leave Chelsea as their U18s head coach.

The former Blues midfielder will be the number two at the Championship side, taking his first steps into senior football management after a successful stint with Chelsea in the academy set-up.

Morris was popular among Chelsea supporters and could well make a return to the club one day, but for now he is excited about the prospect of working with his former team-mate.

"The club itself obviously has a pull with the tradition that it has got and the prestige that it holds in English football for so long," Morris told Derby's official website.

"But when it started developing and the talks were getting under way it was something that started to look more and more attractive to me, which it would have had to be for me to leave my role because I was very happy with my role at Chelsea and working with the academy there.

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Morris was in charge of the Chelsea U18s for two seasons and won a treble in his first campaign, following it up with the quadruple the next year.

"We were lucky there that we had a lot of good players to choose from, but that in turn can have its own problems," he added. "Obviously you want to get players into the first team, that is the main objective, but at the same time you want to manage your teams and improve your players that you are working with daily."